The following background information may present examples of specific aspects of the prior art (e.g., without limitation, approaches, facts, or common wisdom) that, while expected to be helpful to further educate the reader as to additional aspects of the prior art, is not to be construed as limiting the present invention, or any embodiments thereof, to anything stated or implied therein or inferred thereupon.
It is known that aquaculture is the controlled cultivation of aquatic organisms such as fish, crabs, mussels, and aquatic plants. Aquaponics can combine aquaculture and hydroponics to create an interdependent network of benefit to both aquarium animals and plants.
Typically, hydroponics involves growing plants using a growth medium such as a mineral nutrient solutions, in water. Soil is not used as the growth medium with hydroponics. This enables vertical growth and other nontraditional means of harvesting plants. It is known that terrestrial plants may be grown with their roots in the mineral nutrient solution only or in an inert medium, such as perlite, gravel, or mineral wool, and the like.
Often, aquaponic farming combines conventional aquaculture, such as raising aquatic animals with hydroponics in a symbiotic environment. In normal aquaculture, excretions from the animals being raised can accumulate in the water, increasing toxicity. These excretions may include nitrogenous waste.
It is well known that a rotation is a circular movement of an object around a center point of rotation. A three-dimensional object rotates always around an imaginary line called a rotation axis. If the axis is within the body, and passes through its center of mass the body is said to rotate upon itself, or spin. Controlled rotation can work to uniformly expose an object to light, or agitate a fluid, as the angular momentum of the rotation is increased or varied.
The growth of the plants are often stymied by a lack of even exposure to light. Otherwise, rotatably exposing the plants consumes large amounts of energy, especially in large scale farming. The toxic excretion of the aquarium animals tends to deposit due to insufficient flow during circulation. Oxygen, which is needed by both the plants and the aquarium animals may also be in short supply if the network is too stagnant.
Even though the above cited vertical growing systems address some of the needs of the market, however, a rotatable vertical growing system that generates rotational energy and pressure to increase flow rate in a circulatory path and uniformly expose a hydroponic network to elements is still needed.